


pushing the needle

by queerofcups



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-02 23:20:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12736374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queerofcups/pseuds/queerofcups
Summary: The shop smells like patchouli and cleaning solution and Phil isn't nervous at all.





	pushing the needle

Phil sat in the shop, just barely stopping himself from chewing the pen as he read the release waiver. He didn’t have diabetes, didn’t have HIV or AIDS, wasn’t pregnant, didn’t have a history of Hepatitis C.

This is the third shop he’d stopped in. The first two had been...too much. Too dim, the music a little too metal, the people at the front desk a little too brusque. This whole idea was a little harebrained and he was nervous enough without some guy probably named Spike growling at Phil about not filling out the medical form right. This shop wasn’t as trendy as those, finding it's home in a part of town that used to be rundown but recently taken over by young professionals. The girl at the front desk, the first lady Phil had seen in one of theses shops, had pierced cheeks, but the tattoo on her neck was peeking out of a sunshine yellow jumper and she’d actually smiled at Phil when he’d walked in. And the radio was playing the new Dua Lipa song that Phil had had stuck in his head on loop for a week now.

He says as much to the girl when he turns his form in, and she laughs and agrees, and chats with him a little about the video and doesn’t even seem too judgemental when he admits that he hasn’t seen it but the description of flamingos has him intrigued.

“Anyway,” she says brightly, “Dan went out to grab a bite and he’s our only artist working today. But it's pretty busy, so he’ll be able to get you in a bit.”

Phil nods and sits back down and tries not to think too hard. The tattoo shop smells like a mix of patchouli and antiseptic that comes out sweet, and oddly comforting. The leather of the seat creaks a little every time he moves, so he tries not to move too much. The Shins play on the radio.

The shop door dings and both Phil and the girl at the front desk look up. The guy walking through waves at her, still looking at his phone, then glances over at Phil, at smiles. His face is obscured a little by his hood but Phil can’t see any tattoos or piercings other than a thin silver ring through his right nostril.

But two smiles in the span of a minute. Phil’s liking his choice better and better.

“You’ve got a customer,” the girl says, nodding at Phil.

The guy nods, pushing his hood back and turns to Phil. There’s a spray of cherry blossoms climbing out of his shirt and up his neck, tucking behind his ear. They’re soft and pink, more like a pastel painting on skin than the harsh lines that Phil thinks of when he imagines tattoos. Phil drags his eyes away from the guys neck to his face and then down to the hand he’s been holding out for probably too long to not be awkward.

“I’m Dan,” he says, shaking Phil’s hand. “D’you know what you’ve got in mind?”

Phil shakes his hand awkwardly and nods, pulling out the print out he’d made late last night while finishing off a bottle of wine. He’d promised himself that if he still wanted to do it in the morning he’d do it. And that’s how he’s found himself in this tiny shop with two people nice than he’d expected to find, handing Dan, the attractive tattoo man, a little drawing of a cloud and a strike of lightning Phil had doodled on a napkin two years ago that Jimmy had just returned to him.

He’d called it a thank you present, Jimmy had. Thanks for holding my stuff. Thanks for waiting for me all these years. Thanks for putting your life on hold because even though I told you I didn’t want you to, I secretly wanted you to.

Except he hadn’t, had he? He’d come back from studying abroad and instead of running back into Phil’s arms and pressing play on their paused relationship, he’d come back to get his stuff and become gone for good.

“Do you want this design exactly?” Dan asks, looking at the creased napkin, “Or do you want me to whip something up…? What size were you thinking?”

Phil tells him the details, gives Dan permission to draw something similar and he can compare the two and decide.

Dan takes it all in, watching him and nodding and then gently takes the napkin from Phil’s hand and disappears back into the back of the shop.

“Please be careful with that!” Phil says before he can stop himself. He bites his lip. That was weird. That was probably weird of him. To be protective of a two year old napkin that’s held up remarkably well.

“He’ll be careful,” the front desk girl says.

Phil’s starting to feel bad about not knowing her name, so he asks. She looks pleasantly surprised, tells him it's Cassidy.

“Do tattoo artists usually have more tattoos?” Phil asks, because nervousness is jittering up and down his hands, shaking them, and he wants to be distracted.

“Dan’s got plenty,” Cassidy says, smiling. “He’s just a little more covered up than the rest of us.”

“Don’t want to start a sex riot, so I can hardly walk around half-naked like the rest of you lot” Dan says, coming out from the back. He’s got a notebook in one hand, Phil’s napkin in the other, and he’s taken his jacket off. He’s still wearing a thin sweater, so Phil can still only see the cherry blossom.

He sits on the other side of the old leather couch and leans over to show Phil the notebook. He smells a little like antiseptic too, and above that, something a bit smokey but a good smokey. He’s also taken Phil’s little doodle and given it bolder lines, sketching into something that looks like a proper tattoo.

“I can make it bigger or smaller,” he says, tapping a pen to the notebook.

“It’s perfect,” Phil says, before Dan can say something to make him change his mind. And it is, the lines are bold, but not too thick and Dan’s sketch is larger, but just big enough that it doesn’t feel like a commitment, even though, Phil supposes it is.

It’s fine. Phil’s good at commitment. A little too good, maybe.

“Ok.” Dan says, “I’ll get this set up.”

He disappears to the back again and Phil’s left twiddling his thumbs, trying to find the last notes of burning wood amongst all the chemical and herbal smells of the shop. The leather creaks, which means he’s moved on to fidgeting.

“Dan’s really good,” Cassidy says, giving him a sympathetic smile. “One of the favorites here. You’re in good hands.”

Before Phil can explain that it's not Dan he’s worried about, the doorbell dings with more customers. Cassidy is immediately wrapped up in a father-daughter duo, the daughter looking to get an industrial piercing.

“Hey,” Dan says, popping up again. “Ready for you, come on back.”

Phil notices, following Dan into the backrooms of the shop, that Dan’s jeans are very sight, but somehow still manage to sag around his ass. Not that Phil was lingering on Dan’s ass.

But he’s allowed to. He’s been allowed to for years now, but now he’s really, definitely, officially allowed to.

“It’s this one,” Dan says, turning Phil into a small room. It smells even more like cleaners and everything is porcelain white except the black leather chair and stool in the middle of the room and the chrome of all the needles. So many needles.

Phil looks up from the needles and a surprised little laugh comes out of him. There are a few sketches on the walls, some of Dan’s sketches, but right in the eyeline of the black chair is a calendar. Right now it's flipped to March and a Shiba Inu is winking at him, paws crossed daintily.

“Very March. Such rain. Wow.” Phil reads, still giggling a little.

Dan smiles at him and Phil definitely notices how lovely his smile is.

“The old shibe usually gets the nervous ones,” Dan tells him. He goes to the other side of the chair and pats it, inviting Phil. “Left side, just on the ribs, right? Take your shirt off.”

“No dinner first?” Phil asks, and pulls his shirt off so he doesn’t have to see Dan’s reaction to that joke. Flirt? It might have been a bit flirty. A flirty joke.

Dan’s still got a bit of a smile on his face as he turns Phil a little and tells him to raise his arm.

They stand in silence as Dan quickly rubs Phil’s side with sharp-smelling alcohol and shaves a patch of skin right on the side of his ribs. If Phil strains he can just hear the music coming from the front of the shop. It's Years and Years now. After a moment he realises Dan is humming along.

“Okay,” Dan says, disappearing for a moment and returning with a circle of paper. He carefully places the stencil across Phil’s side, glancing up at Phil to confirm the placement.

Phil nods, and tries to breath normally as Dan smooths his hands across Phil’s side, his fingertips not far from Phil’s nipple. No one ever mentioned how much touching there is involved in getting a tattoo. In all the guides he’d looked up online, no one had mentioned what to do when your tattoo artist is really attractive and also you’ve not allowed yourself to hook up with anyone in the last two years in hopes that your technically ex-boyfriend was doing the same.”

Dan sprays him with something cold from a water bottle and Phil squeaks, feeling a little persecuted.

“Soz,” Dan says, sounding distracted, “It's cold.”

He presses against Phil’s skin firmly for a few seconds more, then peels the stencil away.

“Go check that out, and if it's good, we can get started.”

While Phil looks at the stencil, the little cloud and lightning that’s going to be on his skin forever, Dan bustles around in the background. He turns on music, something a little jazzy and Phil tries not to turn around when he hears the honestly menacing buzzing noise of the tattoo gun.

“If you’re ready,” Dan says, “You can pop up here and we can get started.”

“Is it gonna hurt?” Phil asks. He’d looked on a ton of sites and he’s sure Dan’s heard this a million times, but he can’t help but ask.

He turns to look at Dan, who shrugs and says, “Yep.”

Phil makes a distressed face and Dan huffs a laugh.

“Sorry, sorry.” Dan says, smiling at not seeming very sorry at all. “I try not to lie to customers when they ask. It’ll hurt. Everyone is different. Maybe you have a super high pain tolerance and it’ll feel like a tiny pencil is tickling you.”

Phil laughs at the image and Dan tuts at him and murmurs for him to stay still while he examines the stencil one last time.

“Okay,” Dan says, “Hop up in the chair.”

Phil sits and watches Dan bustle around the room, gathering and dropping the last few shiny chrome bits and bobs onto what looks suspiciously like a surgical tray.

“This is a good design,” Dan says as he sits and adjusts the height of his stool. “What’s the story?”

He hits a button and the chair starts lowering backward. Phil gets a weird moment of deja vu, thinking of the last time he was at the dentist.

“Nothing,” Phil says, “Just...a little thing I’ve been doodling. I started it when I started my program. Meteorology. That’s boring, sorry.”

Dan makes an interested noise. “Not boring at all. I never really think of weathermen...people? I never really think of weatherpeople as going to school. Guess I always thought they just popped up, fully formed, wellies and pointerstick in hand.”

Phil chuckles again at the image, trying to stay as still as possible, since Dan told him to. “You’re the second person I’ve met in my life that doesn’t find the whole thing dreadfully boring. My boyfriend--ex-boyfriend, thought it was interesting. Not interesting enough, though, I guess.”

Phil notices Dan pauses in ordering all of his things, so he’s not fully surprised when Dan asks, “So is this a revenge tattoo then? Get back at the old ex-boyf for not loving your love of...cumulonimbus clouds?”

Phil shakes his head, “Nothing like that. I’d just...been waiting. For him. To get tattoos together, and then he didn’t want to do that, or anything else, with me. And there went two years where I could have gotten a tattoo, or found the love of my life, or changed my major, or anything, but I didn’t because I was just...waiting.”

When Phil looks up at the cieling, the clinical white light in the cieling is haloed with a sunburst. He blinks and it clears. He’s not going to cry before the tattoo even gets started.

“Well,” Dan says after a beat of silence. “That’s good. I don’t believe in revenge tattoos. I’d say they were cursed, if I believed in curses and energy and stuff like that. I usually try to talk customers out of them by showing them my really terrible one.”

Phil looks back at Dan in interest. He doesn’t say anything but Dan still rolls his eyes and stands to lift up his shirt and twist a little so Phil can see the little, mostly faded, symbol near Dan’s lower back. It's hard to see in the forest of other tattoos he has, a mass of thick dark lines and surprising bursts of color.

“Is that,” Phil trails off and squints.

“It’s the symbol for gemini,” Dan says, dropping his shirt, like a curtain over the mystery of all the tattoos Dan’s hidden away under the full cover of his clothing. “My ex hated astrology. And stick and pokes. He hated a lot of things, really.”

“Huh,” Phil says, laying back. “No. It's not a revenge tattoo.”

“Great!” Dan says, and finally says, “Ok, so let’s get you into position.”

The actual tattooing process is quick, and pretty painful. It’s not the wide, aching sort of pain Phil’s felt before when he’s stubbed his toe, or the memorable time he’d taken a tennis ball to the nose. The pain is a sharp, burning line across his ribs, and Dan has to remind him several times to just breath through it.

When Dan gets directly over the bone and Phil makes an involuntary hurt noise, Dan takes pity on him and asks him what he does other than learn how to track patterns of fog.

“We don’t do that,” Phil says, hearing how labored his own breath is, “And...video games. Watching anime. My friends and I play board games when we’re not all studying.”

“What anime?” Dan asks, then says, “Deep breath.”

Phil takes a deep breath, a gasp, really, and hisses out, “Attack on Titan, mostly.”

The pain stops for a moment and Phil sighs and continues, “Boku no Hero Academia, too, lately.”

Dan makes an interested noise, “I’ve heard that’s really good, is it?”

The last few minutes of the tattoo Phil breathes through the sting and feeling of the tattoo needle digging into his skin and talks to Dan about anime.

Sooner than he expects, Dan says okay and sits up straight, wiping at Phil’s ribs.

“Do you want to look at it?” Dan asks. “It's a little bloody and inky right now, but it looks good!”

Phil climbs off the table and walks over to the little mirror to look at his side. The skin around the tattoo is read and sore looking but the tattoo itself is surprisingly cool, a fluffy cloud and a bolt of lighting, shaded in and permanent looking.

“It's really good,” Phil says, beaming at Dan. “Thank you!”

Dan nods and beckons him over, explaining the aftercare process while he puts a bandage on, pressing gently but firmly against Phil’s tender side. He lets Phil up to gingerly pull his shirt back on.

“Thank you,” Phil says again, reaching into his wallet to get out the tip he’d assiduously researched about. “It’s really great. Better than I even expected.”

Dan shrugs and says, “It's my job.”

But there’s still a little smile on his mouth.

He hands Phil a car with his name and number on it. “Come back in a few weeks so I can be sure it's healing ok.”

Phil nods, taking the card.

“Or,” Dan says, ducking his head a little. “Come back sooner. Or use the number. It's my personal one. If you want”

Phil blinks at him and Dan shrugs, like his cheeks haven’t gone red.

“I’ll--I’ll do that,” Phil says, not fighting the sunny smile. Dan smiles back at him, and gives a cute little wave when Phil starts to walk out the door.

Madison seems to notice as he settles up his tab, and nods approvingly, “I told you you’d like him.”

Phil nods and doesn’t bother to tell her that it seems like Dan liked him back just as much. 

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi at queerofcups.tumblr.com!


End file.
